Calif. police hop on social media

The San Joaquin County Sheriff's Office is joining many of its brethren in law enforcement in ramping up its social media presence

The Record

FRENCH CAMP, Calif. — The San Joaquin County Sheriff's Office is joining many of its brethren in law enforcement, most notably the Stockton Police Department, in ramping up its social media presence to establish new means of communications with the public.

Anyone can now follow the Sheriff's Office on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Nixle.

"It's something we have been working on. We've had success with our first Facebook page," Sheriff Steve Moore said Monday, referring to the "San Joaquin County Sheriff's Unsolved Homicide/Missing Persons" page launched two years ago. "And we're well-aware of the Stockton Police Department's success with their social media."

A new cadet with the Sheriff's Office, a student at University of the Pacific who is current on social media applications, is helping to set up the sites. The new social media effort will be managed by the sheriff's public affairs unit.

Alerts, news, events and photos will be added to the sites as they are made publicly available, the sheriff said.

"We hope it will be an investigational aid to get information out faster, and we hope the public can respond with more information," Moore said. "It's just another conduit."

Some of the sites may take a few days to be available on search engines, according to department spokesman Deputy Les Garcia.